Hungarian Conservative

With culture and identity often taking centre stage in politics nowadays, economic issues are also increasingly looked at from a cultural point of view. In order to gain a better understanding of present-day social clashes, it is important to examine social changes in the past and their cultural fingerprint, including how literature later reflected on the painful transition to capitalism.

In contemporary Catholic social teaching, like Slachta’s reasoning, women are essentially other than men, and this otherness is articulated in the papal encyclicals in relation to women’s role in the family. In contrast, the Catholic nun’s view of the female otherness goes beyond this approach. Although she also emphasises the dignity of the female gender, for her, feminine otherness is the underlying motif of her thinking.

This piece provides an overview of the ‘Goulash communism’ times of Hungarian history, while attempting to answer the question: why do some Hungarians appear to be nostalgic about the Kádár era?

‘Szekfű described “capitalism” as “having grown in size over time, becoming a more and more fearsome monster, creating factories and cramming hundreds of thousands and millions of people into the unhealthy, immoral air of smoky cities. And the longer the unrestricted freedom proclaimed by liberalism lasts, the more freely the capitalist big business devours the little ones, the more freely it exploits the economic weaklings, especially the workers.” Szekfű’s book Three Generations, in which he also called for extensive worker protection and the regulation of industrialists by law, bears a striking resemblance to the basic tenets of socialism.’

Hungary and Slovakia stand together in the EU when it comes to child protection and family policy, Slovak Minister of Labour, Social Affairs and Family Milan Krajniak states. An interview on wokeism, communism and conservative family policy.

Sowell begins his book by stating that there are many explanations for inequalities, which broadly fall into two extreme categories: some believe that inequality is rooted in descent, in genetics, while others believe that the less well-off are exploited by the rich. Sowell believes in neither as an exclusive explanatory factor. Instead, he holds that success depends on certain preconditions, where even small differences can lead to big differences in outcomes.

Given the resurgence of the concept of central planning, it is vital to recall that even 20th century scholars recognised the profound flaws inherent in such a techno-optimistic approach. One of the intellectuals opposing this mindset was Michael Polanyi, a Hungarian British polymath, whose ingenuity brought about important discoveries in physical chemistry, philosophy and economics.

The following is the written version of a 2013 presentation by then Constitutional Court Justice István Stump, originally published in the online version of the Hungarian Review magazine. By republishing

Will the European Union gradually evolve into a community of fate? Whether or not this is going to happen will depend on the Europeans’ ability to learn from each other and to understand each other better. This again depends on mutual knowledge: of languages, of their respective neighbours’ histories, literatures and cultures… More mutual understanding may one day create a European public of some sort.

‘Those who oppose the Woke tide must recognize that the revolution they face is a many-headed hydra, driven and enabled by a multitude of factors beyond the political. Ultimately its deepest roots are in the social atomization, cultural breakdown, and the void of spiritual meaninglessness produced by the nihilism of Western modernity.’

A new populism is appearing, based on real participatory federalism oriented towards tradition and community, with the Nomos being grounded in the ethnic divisions of states and regions.

This article will present the reader with a basic understanding of the tragic but triumphant life of Whittaker Chambers, the man whose dramatic, twelve-word encounter with God and subsequent heroic exploits became the inspiration for a new generation of conservatives, like Ronald Reagan.

If liberalism is to survive, it has to renavigate its ship from a universalistic, moralizing, abstract and therefore anti-political concept-world into the polis. Escaping its own totalist and hegemonic aspirations, it must become a part of politics: the constant formation and affirmation of who we are.

As regards so-called ‘globalization’, it is becoming evident that—due to technological and supply chains complexities—it is reaching its natural limits. We should, therefore, pay more attention to the rationality of domestic policies.

European debates tend to ignore the fact that Hungarian politics—sometimes peculiar and certainly unusual to many Western observers—is not meant to curb liberties or enable oppression but, on the contrary, to further freedom and efforts to attain it.

How long do we have to put up with the relativisation of the Holocaust, and the irresponsible usage of the ‘Nazi’ attribute? Does the wish to overthrow Viktor Orbán really justify anything now?

The investigation of communist crimes and the bringing of perpetrators to justice may give closure to the families of the victims. Some argue, however, that tearing up old wounds may make it more difficult for post-Communist societies to move past old grievances.

Dr Brittany Pheiffer Noble recently gave a lecture titled ´From Counterculture to Establishment Subculture: Orthodoxy in 21st century Russia´ at the Danube Institute.

Many of those deported did not even make it alive to their destination, but died on the way to the Soviet Union. These people were not even registered, so there is no information about how many they were. The purpose of their abduction was to rebuild the Soviet infrastructure that had been practically destroyed in the war, so to use them for free slave labour.

The abduction by the Soviets of Smallholder Party MP Béla Kovács marked the beginning of the consolidation of a Communist authoritarian regime in Hungary. 

Gáspár Miklós Tamás was an unconventional intellectual, one of the most famous Hungarian philosophers of the century and an important figure of the regime change years.

Paradoxically, Communist Béla Kun and the contemporary nationalist racists had more in common in terms of their views than the Communist leader had with the social-democratic and the left-leaning bourgeois émigrés.

As communist ideology considered religion, including Christian faith ‘the opium of the people’, as Karl Marx famously put it, its teachings were labelled harmful—and so was celebrating Christmas as a Christian holiday.

While Hungarian national memory of communism is far from being consolidated, the tendency among young people to view their ancestors’ actions under a totalitarian regime with empathy while at the same time to strongly reject communism as a political ideology is a promising development.

EU memory politics places almost exclusive emphasis on Nazism and downplays the significance of Communism in the historical experience of East-Central European members states.

While Eastern and Western Germany do converge with the passing of time, as values are transmitted from generation to generation, the ‘shadow’ of Communism is here to stay for decades to come.

Today Hungary remembers the heroes of the Revolution and Freedom Fight of 1956. The events of the revolution are a testimony to Hungary’s thirst for freedom and self-governance, but also to its vulnerability to the world order.

While some believe that communism ‘fell’ in 1989, over one billion people still live under Communist dictatorship in China. The best way to understand the logic of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), as well as the recent National Congress of the CCP, is to study Marxism-Leninism.

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang gives the readers not only an insight into 20th-century Chinese history, but it also powerfully speaks of human bravery and dedication to truth in the darkest hours of history.

Central planning is not viable because it can never collect enough information about the market to optimally coordinate economic interactions. It is also a path that may lead to a totalitarian state.